These Silent Woods: A Novel(53)

Finch clambers down the rickety steps to the cellar.

I grab Marie’s hand. “Tell them you’re alone. You own the place; you’re spending some time here. Vacation or something. You got snowed in but you’re fine. Just don’t say a word about us, no matter what.”

A glint of bewilderment in her eyes. But also fear. Maybe she is mad, too, and I don’t blame her but I can’t explain anything to her now. There’s no time. I squeeze her palm in mine. “Please.”

I ease onto the steps. Tug the trapdoor, and it whines as it closes overhead. When I’m in, I pull at the ropes that are connected to the bottom of the rug, two pieces that slide through knots in the floor, a contraption I set up long ago, and the rug slips back into place, hiding the door. Above, silence in the house but the engine grows louder, closer. Marie is still at the table, her feet twitching ever so slightly, I can see: a sliver of space between floorboards. Her slender ankles, navy-blue tights, the slippers she has worn all week, red moccasins with a little white bow.

She will tell them she’s alone. She will she will she will. I pull Finch close, tuck her head beneath my chin. “It’s okay,” I whisper into her scalp. “It’s gonna be okay.” If she were looking at me, she’d know I was lying because she always knows, somehow. The way she knows I’m always troubled—“disconcerted,” maybe, is a better word—on January 28th (my birthday). The way I’m always sad on the third of June (the day of the accident). That startling ability of hers to read people, that’s from Cindy. Cindy could look at someone and see right into them, deep into the recesses of their heart, and just know things. Once, we were at dinner, and she leaned over and told me, “That man hurts his wife.” She didn’t know them, didn’t even know their names. But a few weeks later, we read about an arrest in the paper, and there it was, a mug shot of his mean face on the first page. I recognized him right away.

Outside, the engine grows loud and then it’s quiet. One door slams and then another. Two of them. Voices: deep, muffled. Men. West side of the house, next to Marie’s car. Then footsteps, heavy on the porch. Stomp, stomp, kicking off the snow. Knocking at the door, knuckle to wood. Marie is still sitting at the table, her slippered feet in the same spot. From the root cellar I will her to move. Come on, Marie. You can’t just sit there. Get up!

And she does. Slides the chair back, clears her throat, unlocks the door. I can’t see but I imagine her peering out. “Yes?”

“Afternoon. I’m Sheriff Simmons, and this is Manny, my deputy. How are you doing today, ma’am?”

In the cellar, the heavy, pungent smell of dirt. Potatoes from the store, the stubby carrots from our garden. Butternuts from Scotland in the corner. A wooden crate of apples.

“Fine, thank you.” She clears her throat again. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“You mind if we come in?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Pause. “With the mud. Your boots.”

“It’ll just take a minute.”

Shuffling overhead, door moaning as it opens, cold air pouring into the house the way it does, and drifting right down through the floorboards to us. Finch shivers and tucks in closer.

“If you don’t mind,” Marie says, “I’d prefer that you stay on the rug there. I like to keep the place tidy.”

“Sure, ma’am. No trouble at all. Nice place you got here. Never been back here but we have an emergency, and the gate was open. Hope that’s all right.”

The gate. I should’ve trekked out and closed it, that first day.

“My father built this place ages ago,” Marie says.

“You live here year-round?”

I dip my head, hoping to catch a glimpse through one of the cracks in the floorboards. My throat tightens. No. Is it—Yes. The uniform, the military stiffness, those intense blue eyes. The sheriff from the gas station. Will he see the Bronco parked in the woods? Will he recognize it, the way the licorice-chewing attendant did?

“I’m just here for the holidays,” Marie says. “Listen, what’s this all about?”

“Right. Well, ma’am. Not sure if you’re aware of this, but there’s a girl who’s gone missing. A local. Six days now and no sign of her at all.”

Finch wraps her hand around mine and squeezes hard. I think back to that day in the woods, the girl and her camera. I squeeze back. Her nails dig into my palm.

“A girl?” Marie clears her throat. “How old?”

“Seventeen. Why?”

“Just curious.”

Finch looks at me. Slowly, I press my pointer finger to my lips.

“How long have you been here, ma’am?”

“Five days. Six.”

“You seen anything? Heard anything out of the ordinary?”

“No.” Through the floorboards, I see her reaching for her cup. “Nothing. But I’ve been inside mostly, with the snow.”

“You cut all that firewood? Quite a stash there.” A different voice. The deputy. Manny.

“My husband, last trip. He didn’t come this time.”

“And the snowman? Did you make that yourself?” Footsteps overhead, heavy and careful, someone moving across the room but trying not to mess up the floor with the snow and mud.